NORWALK -- The 2015 Mayor's Community Ball paid off in a big way Thursday for local charity organizations Person-to-Person and Norwalk Senior Center.

Mayor Harry W. Rilling selected the two nonprofit organizations to share proceeds from the Community Ball, which was held in January.

At a press conference at City Hall on Thursday morning, he presented the head of each organization a check in the amount of $12,500.

"A community is really judged on how they help young people, how they help seniors and so I think Norwalk is in great shape," Rilling said. "We have a wonderful, wonderful community here. I'm just so proud to be able to provide a check to each of them for $12,500. So thank you all for what you do."

Director Beatrix Winter and board member David T. McCarthy, also a city councilman, accepted the $12,500 and thanked Rilling on behalf of the Senior Center.

"We are so pleased that it's a very large check," Winter said. "It will go a long way to allow us to further our mission, which is to empower adults 60 and over for personal independence, healthy aging, social connection and lifelong learning."

Person-to-Person, which provides financial assistance to low-income households, was selected by Rilling as the other recipient of proceeds from the Community Ball.

Ceci Maher, Person-to-Person executive director, and Troy Ellen Dixon, head of marketing and communications, accepted the $12,500 check and thanked Rilling on behalf of the organization.

"It going to provide people help with security deposits and rents and utility bills, keep people in their homes with the lights on in secure housing, and also, as the mayor mentioned, to help serve a lot of families with food," Maher said.

Rilling said he had visited both organizations and seen their work. Person-to-Person, he said, "does so much for so many" by helping people with things they struggle to afford.

About 600 people attended the 2015 Mayor's Community Ball, which was held Jan. 23 at Continental Manor on Main Street.

Rilling thanked Sally Johnson, his executive assistant, and Maritza Alvarado, administrative grants assistant in his office, for organizing the event.

"They are so good at what they do. They have it down to a science," Rilling said.

Rilling paid tribute to the late-Mayor Frank J. Esposito and his wife, Louise, who started the annual community ball in the 1980s, and thanked Esposito's successors, Mayors Alex Knopp and Richard A. Moccia, for continuing the event.